CMS vs Web CMS vs Print CMS

Here we are in 2007, and content management is still almost as fragmented as it was in the early web days. Publishers still have to organize their workflows around the capabilities of discrete single-source, print, and web CMS products.

What am I talking about?

Print content management: Systems to organize print work, like K4 or SAXOTECH are often called "editorial and production systems" or something similar, where "production" really means "print production". In these systems, content development is done with a specific print target in mind and using a specific print layout tool such as Quark XPress or Adobe InDesign. When edited, and often when written, the content looks like it will in print. Writers, editors, graphic artists, photographers, and layout artists can collaborate on content and pages, in parallel. This is crucial for highly-designed and time-sensitive publications like magazines and newspapers and books like elementary school textbooks. Content can be exported to other systems for re-use if needed, but that's secondary to the main goal of getting high-quality pages out on time. Because the content was developed in a print-specific format, it must be converted to a format usable in other media - PDF (easy), HTML (less easy), or, even better, XML (hard, depending on the DTD or schema that's targeted).

Web content management: These systems are also editorial and production systems, but "production" is for the web instead of for print. They allow users to create content in the context of one or more web sites. Publishers often import content from their print environment into their Web CMS, and then create additional web-only content in the WCMS. WCMS users can see not only how an individual article will look on the web, but also how it will look and behave in the context of the site navigation and other web features. Web designers and graphic artists can update the site look and place graphics at the same time that writers and editors work on text. Web content management is different than print in that programmers are also users, updating site behavior while content and layouts are being created. But a Web CMS is much like a print production system in that it takes some work to get the content out in a usable format for other media, especially print. The storage format is usually HTML. Interwoven and CrownPeak are examples of web CMS's.

Single-source content management: A single-source CMS allows content to be created in a neutral format (usually XML) and published out to multiple media and products. Publishers often work with single-source CMS's for content whose production can be mostly or entirely automated, that has a lot of metadata and internal complexity, and that requires complete consistency in content structure (for example, directories, encyclopedias, or technical instructions). Print-first publishers also use neutral CMS's to add value (like metadata) to converted print content before sending it to the web or out to licensors. RSuite CMS and Documentum are examples of single-source CMS's.

These three types of systems usually live separate and only loosely coupled lives. Files might be sent back and forth among them, but users typically work in one system at a time. In fact, most publisher users work only in one type of system at all.

And this is where things are getting interesting.

Until now, web and print workflows at a publisher have typically been separate, even if users were shared among them. Loose coupling was just fine to support most needs. But over the past year we've seen a distinct shift among publishers towards wanting to enable workflows that can start at any point - web, print, or neutral - and end up at any of the others in a fluid and somewhat unpredictable way. The same user might write a web story one day and a print article the next - and the web story needs to get to print, and the print article to the web. And both stories need to be delivered to partner companies out of the single-source CMS. On the other hand, a publisher that primarily follows a single-source model might want to bring its print-oriented magazine and web-oriented newsletter into its centralized CMS without giving up media-specific workflows.

All this does not equate to a transition to a neutral, single-source approach. Instead, it is a merging of all three types of workflows and systems. Users still need those print production tools in order to be efficient in meeting print deadlines. They still need their web CMS tools to check metadata and presentation. But now they need a single system to move fluidly between print, web, and neutral approaches. They also need a single editorial tool that works for all three contexts. Almost as importantly, publishers are also seeing that it is essential to plug business systems and processes into a unified CMS, particularly for rights management, royalty tracking, ad management, and subscription management.

There is no such unified CMS today, but they are on the way. SAXOTECH, for example, does offer web-oriented editorial and publishing tools in tandem with their print-oriented system, but this is very specific to news publishers. Documentum can be used for web and single-source content management, and they have attempted to add print capabilities, but the product has limitations in XML management, the print attempt didn't work well, and the overall solution is too hard to deploy for most publishers. We on the RSuite team have plans of our own in this regard, and assume (hope) others who serve publishers do too.

Comments

[ann michael]

Lisa -

What a great overview. I will definitely refer my clients to this post - it's clear and packed with great information.

Thanks!
Ann